Near and Far

Do you know what it means to have your parents travel across the world, through countless airports and across borders, to see where you have built another life?

Do you know what it means to introduce your mother and your father to those have become your family, yet know you only as Samouhan?

It means a collision of two worlds: of Mali and America; Samouhan and Cassie; a life that I was born into and another that I've created.



I had been telling everyone that my parents would be coming to visit me since I moved to the village. In 2010, I said. In cold season, I said. In three months, two months, one month, I said. In 4 weeks, two weeks, three days. Before I left to pick them up, I came out of my house and looked at Banta. I tried to explain how I felt: nervous, excited, anxious. "I kono guana," she said: your stomach is heating up.

She was right, my stomach was heating up. Not only was the trip important to me in that my parents would be able to see and better understand what I had been doing, but in that the people who I have become close to here in Mali would meet my real family and catch a glimpse of who I was, and am, besides a single girl past marrying age who speaks halting Bambara.


When we step off the bus -- Mom, Dad, Marika and I -- I can feel everyone's eyes on us. As we walk by the women selling dry oranges and peanuts, past the spot where the chief of the village sits, and through the market, I try to see this place as it must look to Mom and Dad and fail. The goats and chickens are normal, the mud mosque just a sign that I'm close to home, and each door and compound wall is the home of a friend or neighbor.

There is something different though, and even I notice it: it's a buzz in the air, a hum that builds and catches. Samouhan's parents have arrived, and the news spreads fast. Banta comes running out, shaking Mom's hand, Dad's hand, Marika's, babbling so fast in Bambara that I tell her, "Remember, Banta! I told you not to be crazy! Greet them slowly." So she starts all over again, testing the Bambara my mother worked so studiously at for months before her arrival.

Neighbors begin to flow in, anxious to see my family who have come from so far just to see me. It takes us hours to leave the compound in the mornings, as a long stream of men and women, old and young, come to say hello. They ask about everyone in America. They ask about Johnny and Becky who have come before them. "Eh, Allah," they say and shower blessings upon us. They bring chickens and guinea fowl, meat and fruit and bread. There is so much food and more meat than I've seen since Tabaski. By the end of their stay, my family is tired of chicken, but I'm not: I know I'll never eat this well again while I'm still in Mali.

Dad has been named for the chief of the village's father, Coby Daou, and everywhere we go, people cry out to him: "Coby! Bi Daou!" By Malian standards -- with grown children and grey hair -- Dad is an elder and much respected man. He is, by far, the most important member of our group and everyone wants to shake his hand. There are offers to give him new wives and a parcel of lamp to build his own mud house. They call him the chief of the village. "Nba," Dad says. It's the only Bambara he knows (literally, "My mother" -- women say "Nse," which means "My power") but it is good enough.

It takes us hours to get anywhere, even in a small village. Every single person calls us over to say hello. One woman I don't know presents Mom with a jar of honey. Mom's name is Korobora, one of the original Coby Daou's wives. She is long dead, but her children are all eager to meet the American reincarnation of their mother and the general opinion among the community is that Mom looks just like her togoma, or namesake. A straight nose is a mark of beauty here and Korobora was well known for her nose, which she would often jokingly put on sale for about $10. Mom quickly gets in the spirit of it and tips her head in the air, pinches her nose, and cries out "Wa kelen kelen!" (Ten dollars!).

One morning, the chief of the village and all his counselors come to greet Coby and Korobora. The chief of the village has never visited my compound before and Banta squeezes chairs under the hangar that provides shade. I perch on the end of one of the long, wooden lounge chairs that Banta and I spend our days gossiping in and think of how the chief of the village would never have come here if not for the visit of my mother and father. It's almost Christmas and we have decorated the compound with Christmas decorations sent from home -- ornaments from Aunt Julie and fake snow from Cindy Nordlof. As the chief and his counselors give blessings and make short speeches, the snow slips from the top of the hangar and begins to gently fall over the chief.

As we go around town, people repeat over and over that I have become a true member of the community. It seems an odd time for them to say it, at the moment when my family have come, marking me as the child of a different world. But it's true -- I have never felt so a part of things and so honored. I will never be Malian but right now it is enough to just be the toubab who belongs in this village.

The chief of the village's mother -- Lahmine and Baamu and Adama's mother -- passes away towards the end of our visit after many years of sickness. We attend the funeral, my mother, Marika and I surrounded by women with heads covered and my father sitting among the men. Here, in this most intimate of moments, we have found a common turf. Despite the differences between these two worlds which are at times impressive and vast, exciting and intimidating, there is unity in this: the death of a mother.


Time passed all too fast as it is wont to do, and before I knew it, the trip that I had been looking forward to for so long was over and I returned to my village alone. Alone, but now with a bit more color with which the community could paint in the picture of Samouhan -- a little bit more of Cassie mixed in.

My friends and neighbors ask about Coby and Korobora and whether they have made it home safe to America. Doumbia laughs over the pictures he took with his cell phone of Coby eating rice and sauce with his hand. Sitan retells the story of taking her daughter for vaccinations with Korobora in tow. The children sing the song we sang on the radio, Banta puts her nose in the air and says "Wa kelen kelen!" and everyone laughs over Coby and his "Nba"s.

When boys refuse to believe that I won't marry them, I simply say, "Do you think Coby Daou would agree?" and everyone breaks into laughter because they know my father would never give away his only daughter for two measly goats. When others ask why I can't stay in Mali forever, I tell them Korobora wouldn't be too pleased and they nod and cluck their tongues because they have seen the way my mother looks at me.


Do you know what it meant to introduce my mother to Aissata? Do you know what it meant to watch my father pull water and my mother pound onions? Do you know what it meant to watch my parents watch me?

It means not just a collision of two worlds but a union. To be truly happy here, to truly feel a member of the community, is to feel like the barriers between my two worlds are breaking down. My family's visit was another fracture in that wall, another brick torn down.


Thank you to Dad, who survived without beer or a fan and made the perfect poster boy for my Bring Back the Boubou Campaign.

Thank you to Mom, who amazed everyone with her Bambara and me with her eagerness to understand it all.

And thanks to Marika, who came twice, made me the best dressed woman in village, and lives up to the definition of a true balaman muso.